The poem “For the Sleepwalkers” relays the idea that one must open up heart and body and follow one’s heart in order to attain the full experience of life. It emphasizes the tense nature people hold in their daily lives, and also highlights the idea that one must have a trusting heart and nature in order to truly experience life. The experience the poem dramatizes is sleepwalking, showing it to be a state of absolute vulnerability, where one’s heart and mind are completely unguarded. Edward Hirsch proves this idea of a need to open heart and trust like a sleepwalker to be the central theme of the poem.
Hirsch begins using the diction of “faith” to develop a religious connection to sleepwalking. As religion is composed of repeated ritualistic
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Hirsch depicts “our hearts” as “black handkerchiefs...flying” through “the night.” These images, and specifically the diction of “black” and “night” relay the dark context of Hirsch’s literary techniques. Subsequently, Hirsch portrays the way our hearts, these “handkerchiefs,” “[soak]” up the “darkest beams of moonlight” and “the music of owls.” The image of the “darkest beams” continues to develop this darker nature. However, the “moonlight” and “music of owls” relay lighter aspects, and are used as metaphors for the theme of the poem, the need to open one’s heart and trust. Hirsch continues with the imagery of “our hearts” as “black fists flying back to the glove of our chests.” This imagery expresses the darker qualities being shown. Ultimately, this imagery is a metaphor, “black fists”—our hearts—return to “our chests,” shows that Hirsch is suggesting we slowly begin to open our hearts and trust—soaking in the “moonlight”—but can suffer a relapse to our old habits—“black fists...back to the glove.” By detailing this relapse, Hirsch proves the necessity to become like “the sleepwalkers”—to adamantly open our hearts and learn to trust, ultimately to broaden and enrich our